During her career in the jewelry industry, Teresa Roybal lived a high-stress Manhattan lifestyle. When she did have a day off, she longed for a facility that could take care of all her medical and cosmetic needs.

“I wanted to go somewhere where I could have my teeth cleaned or whitened, get Botox, get a therapeutic massage, get a chiropractic adjustment, talk to my shrink — I mean, serious medical offerings under one roof,” she says.

“While I was there, I wanted to feel like it was really very private, very discreet, very luxurious. I wanted it to feel like a spa, but I wanted it to be serious medical treatment from very, very fine doctors.”

But nothing like that existed.

So she created it.

In 1999, Roybal moved to Santa Fe to “test the waters.” As she embraced the community and healed the stress on her body, mind and soul, she started learning about how alternative medical practices complement Western medicine. Within a few years, she had purchased a building, worked with designers to perfect it, and recruited 12 medical professionals to create Whole Being Enhancement, where clients can indulge in services ranging from cosmetic surgery and dentistry to reflexology, acupuncture, medication management and hormonal health balancing for men and women.

The first step for Roybal was taking out a home equity loan and making a down payment of about $200,000 for land and a building shell. Working with the Santa Fe-based Visions Design Group, she created a “really luxurious medical facility that doesn’t feel ‘medical’ at all.”

“We worked on that for a long time, and then I went about trying to find my team,” she says.

She created a marketing campaign, purchased lists from medical boards of the types of doctors she sought and solicited candidates.

The process included background checks and interviews: “We interviewed many, many different doctors to come into the facility. We wanted to bring in a very hand-picked team that was not competitive, [doctors] who were willing to really collaborate with one another and work closely with one another to create a remarkable experience for our clients.”

One of the keys to success is having a clear vision of your goal, says Roybal.

With a new building and high overhead, the temptation might have been to compromise the quality of the doctors: “So you have to ask yourself some very honest questions: What are you really willing to do? What is your ideal, and what are you willing to settle for? What’s your ‘real?’”

Roybal acknowledges that she was fortunate to have a successful career behind her, one that gave her the resources to start Whole Being Enhancement.

That afforded her the luxury of turning down some doctors who wanted to join the center: “Believe me, I wanted them in here, and I wanted the revenue, but long-term, I knew that it wouldn’t serve me. But I had created a business plan and a strategy where I was able to sustain myself for a period of time even though I was just partially leased.”

It took three years to find the right 12 doctors — but the effort paid off.

One of those who made the cut is Joy Horn, a dental hygienist who practices personalized medicine, which uses a patient’s genotype and testing to determine potential diseases, select a medication, provide a therapy or initiate preventive measures tailored to the patient.

Working with Roybal is a privilege, Horn says, and it is exciting to collaborate with a diverse group of medical professionals. The work has helped her understand that time is money — that wise scheduling makes good use not only of her time, but of her patients’ time, as well.

Everything from treatment planning to management systems is different within the group, she says: “I can’t imagine going back.”

Despite the economic downturn, business is booming at Whole Being Enhancement, says Roybal.

“As a matter of fact, [in April] some of the individual practices in here had blockbuster months,” she says, citing her husband, cosmetic dentist Dr. Gabriel Roybal. “After 23 years, he had his best month — and not by a little.”

Clients realize their greatest asset is their health, she says: “They need to take care of their health in order to manage and deal with everything else, all these other obstacles and challenges they have in their lives.”

But Roybal has also developed medical financing options.

“I started to align myself with CareCredit, Wells Fargo, surgeryloan.com — people who were able to offer either no-interest or very low-interest financing rates strictly for health care.”

She has also launched a local advertising campaign and a national campaign that will kick off in the July issue of NewBeauty magazine. Having formed an alliance with Santa Fe resort Encantado — which will offer luxurious accommodations for clients recovering from surgery — Roybal is positioning Whole Being Enhancement to become a destination for medical tourism.

“Santa Fe is a land of healing anyway, and we expect that clients will be flying here from all over the country for a complete transformational kind of makeover,” she says. “And I think we’re going to make a pretty big difference in our community for tourism.”

Employees: Elan Consulting Group has 10 employees. Combined with the 12 medical offices within Whole Being Enhancement, there are between 25 and 30 employees.

Revenue: Roybal expects 2009 revenue to surpass 2008’s by at least $1 million, coming in at between $4.5 million and $5 million.

Strategies:

1. Have a clear vision of your goal and prioritize your focus. Create protocols for reaching those goals.

2. Take the time to assemble the strongest team possible. The team must be comprised not only of the best professionals, but also those who are noncompetitive with one another and cooperate toward the entire group’s success.

3. Take it slow: “One of the business mistakes I have seen so many people make is they get greedy and they try to grow too fast, too soon,” says Roybal. “We are really solid, and I want to continue to maximize who we are and where we are and just continue to grow at more of a slow and steady rate.”